The oddly-shod in ballets --

[bart]

In the "Ballets to make Louis Segal happy" thread, richard53dog wrote the following:

You were sort of already anticipated in this little detail, kind of anyway.

ABT put on Kudelka's Cinderella a few months ago and of course Cinderella only has one of her slippers in Act 3. Kudelka has her dancing around her kitchen with one pointe shoe on and the other foot bare, including a series of fouettes.

The theme is "personal growth." I kid you not.

I thought of this when I recently came across a photo of the late Melissa Hayden dancing the role of Profane Love in Frederick Ashton's "Illuminations." (NYCB 1950) There she was, caressing a bare-chested Nicholas Magallanes, with one foot in point shoe, and the other shoeless. I haven't a clue as to what this was supposed to represent.

Any other examples of oddly shod dancers in ballets?

[Helene]

The cloggers, including the Widow Simone, in La Fille Mal Gardee.

[drb]

... I recently came across a photo of Melissa Hayden dancing the role of Profane Love in Frederick Ashton's "Illuminations." (NYCB 1950) There she was, caressing a bare-chested Nicholas Magallanes, with one foot in point shoe, and the other shoeless. I haven't a clue as to what this was supposed to represent....

Hayden's character was Profane Love, representing sexuality. The Poet was Rimbaud, and she represented Verlaine (as Verlaine shot Rimbaud, she has the Poet shot). I suppose a full-out ballerina look would have been inappropriate for this character. Ashton set most of the choreography on Hayden before he suddenly asked her to remove one shoe, explaining that all of what she'd learned so far was with this in mind.

[Dale]

The Prodigal has his shoes stolen by the goons and Siren. And in Mark Morris' Sylvia, much was made in previews (I think it was the one in the program) about Morris choreographing the bacchanal dance in bare feet, without any slippers. The article said something about the dancers being more "wild" this way.

[rg]

to the best of my recall, Orion's oafish companions in the cave scene with the bacchanal were not barefoot, in one dark photo i have, i can discern that they are wearing woolen socklike footwear, something like mocasin socks; what morris did propose, and get, was for the slave women who accompany sylvia and eros on their barque as it arrives on the scene of act 3, was barefeet for these female corps de ballet women, and they danced that way for the pas d'esclaves (to the music ashton uses for his goat duo) - morris told one interviewer that all 8 of these women were also asked to paint their toenails with tangerine nailpolish, which they did.

[sandik]

Bottom's pointe shoes in Ashton's "The Dream."

[Dale]

to the best of my recall, Orion's oafish companions in the cave scene with the bacchanal were not barefoot, in one dark photo i have, i can discern that they are wearing woolen socklike footwear, something like mocasin socks; what morris did propose, and get, was for the slave women who accompany sylvia and eros on their barque as it arrives on the scene of act 3, was barefeet for these female corps de ballet women, and they danced that way for the pas d'esclaves (to the music ashton uses for his goat duo) - morris told one interviewer that all 8 of these women were also asked to paint their toenails with tangerine nailpolish, which they did.

Act III was what I meant. I kept trying to see if they were indeed barefoot and from my seats couldn't confirm.

Another strange ballet as far as footwear was Sylvie Guillem's production of Giselle. She wore sort of brown pointe shoes with some brown sock-like thing, the idea seeming to be so they'd look like work boots. It was one of many things in the production I didn't care for.

[carbro]

morris told one interviewer that all 8 of these women were also asked to paint their toenails with tangerine nailpolish, which they did.

I kept trying to see if they were indeed barefoot and from my seats couldn't confirm.

I can vouch for the bare, tangerine-colored toenails. The polish qualifies those dancers as "oddly shod."